Peruvian children of same-sex couples face barriers

By Paula Bayarte

Lima, Apr 21 (EFE).- Dakarai and Noam do not have the same rights as other children in Peru. They can neither gain access to inheritance nor healthcare services like the rest because they have two mothers.

This affects the children’s right to identity and puts their families in long legal fights.

In Peru, same-sex marriage is not legal, so registering the children of same-sex couples is not an option in the administrative procedures.

Jenny Trujillo and Darling Delfin are the mothers of Dakarai. He was born in Mexico, where he was able to take their surnames because they got married outside Peru.

But when they arrived in their native Peru in 2016, the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status (Reniec) did not let the minor take his mothers’ last name.

Since then, they started their legal battle to get the rights of their son, as well as thousands of other children raised by same-sex parents, recognized by the Peruvian state.

“There is no law that prohibits a Peruvian from having two mothers or two fathers, there is nothing in our legislation where it says that this is prohibited,” Delfin and Trujillo explain to Efe during a video call from Canada, where they both currently live.

Five years ago, they filed a writ of amparo against Reniec, in which the constitutional court of the Superior Court of Justice of Lima ruled in their favor and forced the registry to grant the child a national identity document with the surnames of both women.

However, it has not happened yet.

This made the couple go to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to file an international lawsuit against the State of Peru so that the national registry complies with the court order.

“We don’t know who Reniec is defending because we are defending our family. We don’t know why it has to appeal a judge’s sentence, it is defending a belief and not defending us as citizens,” Delfin and Trujillo say.

“They not only represent a legal fight, but they are also an icon, an example for thousands of girls who do not know, do not want or are afraid to accept their identity,” explains Luisa Morcos, mother to 20-month-old baby Noam.

Morcos and her partner Mabel Aguilar could not have their son outside the country, so they chose to put Morcos’ surname as the child’s second name while Aguilar registered him as a single mother.

“My son is not protected by the state in the same way that other children are. If, for example, I get run over and I die, Noam cannot inherit anything from me,” says Morcos, who is not the child’s legal mother.

In addition, children of homosexual couples can only get the health insurance of a legal parent and they cannot choose which of the two is better.

“We are thousands of same-sex parented families in Peru and we need visibility, but that does not mean that we do not exist,” stresses Aguilar.

“We have always existed and the state must respond to our situation,” she concludes. EFE

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